Nutrition plays a critical role in maintaining good health. Proper nutrition prevents dietary deficiencies, and also protects against the development of disease. When the body faces physiological stress, proper nutrition plays an increasingly important role. For example, pregnancy and lactation are among the most nutritionally volatile and physiologically stressful periods and processes in the lifetimes of women. Vitamin and mineral needs are almost universally increased during these natural processes. Increased vitamin and mineral needs during these times are almost always due to elevated metabolic demand, increased plasma volume, increased levels of blood cells, decreased concentrations of nutrients, and decreased concentrations of nutrient-binding proteins.
When increased nutrient needs occur during pregnancy, lactation, or any other physiologically stressful state, nutritional supplementation serves a vital role in maintaining good health. Nutritional supplementation is especially pertinent to women contemplating conceiving a child because optimizing specific nutrients before, during, and after the physiological processes of pregnancy or lactation can have profound, positive, and comprehensive impacts upon the overall wellness of the developing and newborn child as well as on the safety and health of the mother. The present invention provides kits and methods designed to supplement the nutritional needs of individuals in physiologically stressful states.
Supplementation with certain vitamins and minerals serves a role in protecting against disease and contributes to the overall health of the mother and developing child. Specifically, such compounds as vitamin B6, vitamin B12, vitamin B9, and omega-3 fatty acids such as docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), play integral roles in physiological mechanisms that serve to prevent, treat and/or alleviate the occurrence or negative effects of some diseases.
DHA specifically has shown multiple health-promoting properties in adults. These include anti-thrombotic, anti-inflammatory and anti-atherosclerotic activity, all of which reduce the risk of heart disease. M Laidlaw and B J Holub, AM J CLIN NUTR 77:37-42 (2003). Inverse relationships have also been found between systemic levels of DHA and incidence and severity of mood disorders and depression, including post-partum depression. Therefore, introduction of omega-3 fatty acids such as DHA during pregnancy has a double benefit, to both child and mother.
Supplementation of other vitamins and minerals with DHA, however, may inhibit DHA's beneficial effects, for example, inhibiting the beneficial effects of reducing the incidence of post-partum depression. Indeed, high blood serum levels of copper, a mineral that is often included in nutritional supplements, has been associated with post-partum depression. J W Crayton et al., J TRACE ELEM MED BIOL 21(1): 17-21 (2007).
Other vitamins and minerals that provide certain benefits may also be associated with undesirable side effects, and thus, would preferably be excluded from a nutritional supplement. For example, calcium, a mineral that is often included in nutritional supplements, has been linked to constipation and other stomach problems such as nausea, vomiting and cramps.
A nutritional supplement kit for physiological stressful states such as during pregnancy or during lactation that includes the benefits of DHA, but excludes the vitamins and minerals that can either have deleterious effects on DHA's benefits, or other unappealing side effects, is currently needed.